WEEKLY
INTELLIGENCE REPORT (WIN) #13-01 dated 2 April 01
WINs are commentaries on open
source intelligence issues and items written, edited, and produced
by Roy Jonkers, for non-profit educational use by AFIO members and
WIN subscribers. Associate editors Don Harvey and John Macartney
contributed articles to this WIN. Opinions expressed are those of
the editors or authors providing the basic references listed with
each article.
Warning Notice:
Perishability of Links: WINs, sent weekly to members, often
contain numerous webpage links to fast-breaking news, documents or
other items of interest; unfortunately, after four weeks many of
these websites [especially newspaper and other media sites] remove
items or shift them into fee-only archives. This underscores
the benefit of receiving the WINs as they are released.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
Robert M. McNamara, Jr., General Counsel, Central Intelligence
Agency, previously Asst General Counsel for Enforcement at the
Treasury Department, and former Georgetown Law professor, will
speak at AFIO's Business Intelligence Symposium on 4 May. The
Symposium on "PROTECTING AMERICA'S BUSINESS SECRETS: THREATS
AND SOLUTIONS," features an all-star cast of speakers in a
one-day super seminar. The place is the Ronald Reagan Center in
downtown Washington DC on May 4th, 2001. See details at
our Website at www.afio.com, or
email us for more information afio@afio.com.
AFIO Members - if you cannot
make it to this super event, let others know. Education on
intelligence and security is our mission! Spread the word to the
corporate and business communities! Open to non-members. This is a
good one - useful, practical. Guaranteed. (Jonkers)
SECTION
I -- CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
US NAVY EP-3e RECONNAISSANCE INTELLIGENCE PLANE COLLIDES WITH
CHINESE JET.
In an incident well covered by the mass media, a US Navy EP-3e
operating in international airspace over the South China Sea was
intercepted by two Chinese F-8 jet fighters on 31 March. China is
claiming, improbably, that the EP-3 veered into one of the
fighters -- more likely the F-8 came to close, overshot or
otherwise accidentally rammed the EP-3. Chinese military pilots do
not get much flying time and are therefore unlikely to be as
skilled as American fighter pilots. The F-8 crashed into the sea
and its pilot is missing. The EP-3e pilot made an emergency
landing at a nearby Chinese military airfield on Hainan Island. A
spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that it was
"international practice" to track foreign surveillance planes
along Chinese territory - as has been done since the 1960's.
Intercepts are indeed routine, but Admiral Blair,
Commander-in-Chief, US Pacific Command, noted that intercepts
had recently become more aggressive, endangering both US and
Chinese planes and crew, saying "it's not a normal practice to
play bumper cars in the air."
The EP-3e is a turboprop stand-off surveillance platform for
intelligence collection, presumably electronic and communications
intelligence, to provide updates on the targeted state's order
of battle deployments and system and equipment operating
characteristics. The sensitive equipment aboard was most likely
destroyed by the 24-man (including women) crew prior to landing,
in accordance with standard operating procedures. The crew is said
to be kept in quarters on Hainan, and the plane was apparently
boarded by Chinese forces. The Chinese have protested the landing
of the aircraft on their territory.
The Chinese Air force intercept capability has been bolstered in
recent years by upgrades in their fighter aircraft (still
light-years behind the US, particularly in avionics). Chinese
policies are estimated to be affected by (1) US policy towards
Taiwan, including US arms flows to the island, (2) the US position
of building a Ballistic Missile defense system, which puts the
Chinese in the position of having to increase budget expenditures
on an increased number of ballistic missiles to retain their view
of a credible deterrent; and (3) their view of territorial waters,
which, based on including their claimed territory of Taiwan and
the Spratly islands, covers the entire South China Sea.
Internally China appears to be moving from the failed communist
paradigm to an increasing nationalist posture. Their national
budget priorities have stressed economic development over military
expenditures, even though they have bought more modern equipment
from the Russians. Their key political issue with the US centers
on Taiwan, which China regards as a maritime province. As tensions
heated up over Taiwan in the mid-1990's, it began sending its
aircraft over the Taiwan Strait. Now, China has acquired more than
50 SU-27 fighter planes from the Russians, as well as 10 SU-30
attack planes and S-300 surface-to-air missiles. China has also
sent F-8 planes to Hainan. The aircraft is based on a design that
the Soviets rejected and that China obtained before its alliance
with the Soviet Union collapsed. It looks like a huge MIG-21.
As a result of all this, after decades of keeping watch over its
own skies, China's Air Force has begun in recent years to range
farther out above the waters beyond its borders. The United
States, in turn, has expanded its intelligence-gathering in the
region, as Washington's security interests have increasingly
turned towards Asia. Current US policy is said (in the media) to
be more influenced by hard-line (anti-Chinese) thinkers (e.g. Dep
SecDef Wolfovitz et.al.) still fighting the Chinese peril dating
from the Quemoy & Matsu days, and less by the business lobby
seeking markets in China or the strategists such as Henry
Kissinger and Presidents Nixon and Bush Sr. as well as Clinton.
The atmospherics aside, one must expect that cool heads and
pragmatic judgments will prevail on all sides, and that the
reconnaissance plane and crew will be returned forthwith.
Intelligence, including stories of spies, defectors and
reconnaissance, remain a center of media attention - probably
not a preferred posture. (Jonkers)
(Wash Post 2April01, p. A1//Pomfret) (NY Times, april3, 01// M.
Gordon)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26398-2001Apr2.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-China-Plane.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28747-2001Apr2.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30085-2001Apr3.html
CIA STATION CHIEF RECALLED FROM BUENOS AIRES -- The
disclosure of the CIA Station Chief's identity, including name and
photo in the local papers, blamed on Argentine officials,
reflected existing personal irritations and organizational
tensions between the CIA and Argentine intelligence. He has been
recalled. (Macartney) http://www.pagina12.com.ar/2001/01-01/01-01-07/pag15.htm
SECTION
II -- CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE
TOXIC THREAT INTELLIGENCE -- Whether the main THREAT to US
security is enraged Islamic fundamentalism, some Arab fanatic
hiding in Afghanistan, Cyber insecurity about our infrastructure,
an aroused China, or domestic malcontents, is a matter of debate.
There is little debate about another pervasive threat, the
biological threat, for although the deliberate version is
recognized (bio/WMD terrorists), the national self-suicidal
biochem threat embedded in our culture and way of life gets scant
recognition in the Threat lore - except by cultists.
The Federal Center for Disease Control reported on March 21st
surprisingly high levels of toxic chemicals in items we use every
day - soap, shampoo etc. A 1999 study showed high levels of
contamination with pesticides, and the National Academy of Science
estimated last year that 600,000 children are born each year with
elevated levels of mercury. The studies show that pollution
is personal, individual. We are becoming walking, talking toxic
waste sites.
Since the petrochemical industry started in the 1940's some 85,000
new chemicals have been manufactured and released into the
environment. Many public health officials see a connection between
this phenomenon and the increased instances of asthma,
reproductive disorders, low sperm counts, genital defects in male
infants, Parkinson's disease, brain tumors and leukemia. The data
are not definitive. The threat is slow and subtle. The cost to
change our culture and attack the problem is high. Probably too
high, unless and until disaster strikes. (FFJournal, Mar22,01)
(Jonkers)
US NAVY CASE VS
DANIEL KING -- At the instigation of Shelby, Chairman of the
Senate intelligence committee, the DOD IG is investigating Navy
handling of the espionage case. Daniel King is a 20 year Navy
Petty Officer and cryptologist who failed a polygraph upon
reassignment to NSA at Ft Meade, MD in 1999. Under prolonged
(e.g., 16 hours at a crack) questioning, he confessed to spying
for Russia during a previous NSA tour and was held for some 520
days in a Quantico brig. However, he later recanted his
confession, and when the case finally came to trial last month, a
Navy judge said the confession was dubious and there was no other
evidence -- case dismissed. King's civilian attorney, Jonathan
Turley, followed an unusual strategy involving, among other
things, an attempt to turn the tables on the government by
relentlessly accusing the military judge and opposing counsel of
security violations both large and small (such as using a cellular
telephone inside a SCIF, failing to use cover sheets on classified
documents, etc.). King has applied for 20 year retirement and will
leave the Navy. He plans to SUE the Navy for damages.
(Macartney)
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/31/world/31CHIN.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Navy-Espionage.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7499-2001Mar28.html
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2001/03/033001.html
PREDATORS -- A SCARCE INTELLIGENCE RESOURCE --The media
reported that two CinC theater commands were competing for
Predator UAV (Unmanned Airborne Vehicle) assets for intelligence
purposes. Reportedly, the urgent requirement for Predators to
relieve the flying unit now watching over Iraq requested by
CINCENT has been shunted aside by the Joint Chiefs to use the
Predators to respond to even more urgent needs in the Macedonia
and Kosovo area. It would appear the often-predicted day when the
US military cannot handle two simultaneous conflicts successfully
has arrived even before the direct US involvement in two conflicts
has arrived.
It was also reported that the Air Force was simultaneously
enthusiastically working to expand the demand for the scarce
drones in non-intelligence roles. The Air Force's "UAV
Battlelab" at Eglin AF Base, Florida is working to "missionize"(sic)
Predator's capabilities for air-interdiction, close-support and
search-and-rescue missions. Under the "Battlelab's"
approach, the Predator would serve as a Forward Air Controller (FAC),
primarily as a communications link. but could eventually be armed
and "weaponized" (in Air Force jargon). Use of the UAV
as an air-to-ground missile shooter has already been successfully
tested, while testing the platform as an air-to-air missile
shooter is being considered.
In the "nothing succeeds like success" theme, it
is reported that the Air Force Air Combat Command is locked in a
bureaucratic struggle with the Air Force Materiel Command's Big
Safari program over who will control Predator's acquisition
destiny. It can be hoped, perhaps optimistically, that in all the
Johnny-come-lately fuss by the heavies, someone will ensure the
intel types get enough Predators to do their job. Since the Air
Force has been systematically down-grading intelligence and
"integrating" the function into Operations for the last
couple of years, optimism may be misplaced. (Harvey) (Aviation
Week 26 Mar '01, p.22; Jane's Defense Weekly 28 Mar '01 by Michael
Sirak)
SECTION III --
CYBER INTELLIGENCE
WARNINGS OF CYBER ATTACKS -- In the last several weeks, the
National Security Adviser, the Director of the FBI, and the
four-star general leading the Defense Department computer network
defense have all pointed in varying statements to the US
vulnerability to cyberspace attacks by hostile nations or
international groups, criminal and terrorist. Condoleeza Rice told
a forum on Internet security recently, "The very technology
that makes our economy so dynamic and our military forces so
dominating also makes us more vulnerable."
FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, in introducing the new head of
the three-year old National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC),
Ronald Dick, noted his wealth of experience in 24 years in the FBI
in a variety of fields, including heading the NIPC's computer
investigations unit. Mr. Dick said that an attack from a terrorist
group, rogue nation, disgruntled former employee or hacker, could
destabilize the nation's economy unless there were closer
cooperation within the federal government and better coordination
between private business and the multi-agency NIPC.
Dick noted that at least 50 computer viruses are generated weekly
and that the biggest immediate problem facing companies is a lack
of safeguards to prevent former employees who maintain computer
access from attacking vital computer systems. A major hurdle for
the NIPC is that numerous business executives fear involvement
with the FBI will hurt their enterprises by bringing public
attention to cyber problems that might otherwise be addressed
privately.
Meanwhile the NIPC, which has about 100 people from CIA and the
Defense Department as well as the FBI, has been hampered by
behind-the-scenes power struggles among various federal agencies,
especially between Defense and the FBI. The new deputy commander
of the NIPC, Rear Admiral James B Plehal ("My technology
background consists of a 17-year-old son.") said they are
determined to reduce the friction and improve cooperation.
The Commander U.S. Space Command, General Ralph E. Eberhart, USAF,
has said to reporters that he is worried about China's growing
capability to conduct computer warfare and that North Korea, Iran,
Iraq, and other nations (e.g. India, Russia) are also working on
cyber-attack capabilities that could potentially threaten the US
military's increasing reliance on information systems. Space
Command has been designated by the Defense Department as the unit
in charge of "computer network defense" and its
offensive counterpart, "computer network attack."
(Harvey) (Wash Times 29 Mar '01, p.3; USA Today 23 Mar '01, p.4;
Wash Post 20 Mar '01; Wash Post 21 Mar '01 p. A16)
NEW CLOAKED-CODE THREAT TO CORPORATE SECURITY--
A new technique for disguising programs aimed at cracking
corporate networks could raise the stakes in the heated battle
between hackers and security experts. During a seminar last week
at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, a
hacker named "K2" revealed a program he created that can
camouflage the tiny programs that hackers generally use to crack
through system security. The cloaking technique is aimed at
foiling the pattern-recognition intelligence used by many
intrusion detection systems, or IDSes, known as the burglar alarms
of the Internet.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5080532,00.html
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5423454.html
(Levine's Newsbits 04/02/01)
SECTION IV -
BOOKS AND SOURCES
CRYPTONICON, a novel by Neal Stephenson, (
Morrow, 2000), reviewed by Pete Speer: "Cryptonomicon"
by Neal Stephenson is almost indescribable. Better, deeper, and
wider than W.E.B. Griffin, more detailed and yet easier to follow
than Tom Clancy, this novel is a twenty-four carat feast for the
mind. The reader will recognize under various guises Statistical
Tabulating/IBM Commander Rochefort at Station Hypo, and others
whom it will be great fun to decipher. The sample at the site
below gives only the smallest hint of the continuing and ever
changing feast inside -- comedy, history, action, adventure,
romance and Reimann equations -- from punch cards to quantum
computers ending with a saga of buried treasure. It makes Indiana
Jones seem like a parlor prankster. ... Do not begin to read
it on your honeymoon or place it at your watch station. And the
N.Y. Times and the N.Y. Post agree!!
"Electrifying, hilarious. sprawling, picaresque novel
about code making and code breaking. it wants to blow your mind
while keeping you well-fed and happy." -The New York
Times Book Review
"Neal Stephenson....is the rarest of geniuses, capable of
appreciating math, cultural traditions, free markets, computer
programming, and the human psyche-through the same rationalistic
lens-without ignoring the subtleties involved in any of
them." -New York Post (Speer/Macartney)
http://www.cryptonomicon.com/text.html
HAVANA CONFERENCE DOCUMENTS ON BAY OF PIGS - The
conference, which included Cuban as well as American (CIA)
participants, opened March 23rd, with Fidel Castro in
attendance. Several thousand Cuban documents were declassified and
released. Not much appeared to be new, apart from the novelty of
the occasion. The Czechs apparently supplied Cuba with 50,000
9-millimeter guns and millions of bullets in 1959, through a Swiss
middleman, financed by CARE, an American religious organization,
which apparently, as part of its charity work, is a major buyer of
Cuban sugar. We will await a full report by AFIO Board member Sam
Halpern, who, as a charter member of Operation Mongoose, attended
the event. (Jonkers) (NYT 23 March 01, and March 25, p. 10).
SECTION V --
LETTERS
LETTER ON NAVY EP-3E RECCE Aircraft Ditching
Characteristics: "I was a member of VP-09 and junior
pilot when our squadron P-3 ditched(controlled) off the Aleutians
in 1978. Of note, the sea state and conditions were extreme due to
the gale force winds and snow squalls. One engine was out due to a
fire and another was failing. This was a straight stick P-3, but
one lesson learned was that the airframe held up very well despite
skipping and plowing into a heavy swells. The wings departed and
then the airframe sank within a minute. All got out except for one
member trapped in the rear, 4 others died from other environmental
problems.
"If
the hydraulics were in fact failing, I would not attempt a ditch.
It would be nearly impossible since you want to be as slow as
possible and controllability would be a big problem, especially
with an engine out and other possible structural problems. On a
runway landing, you can keep your speed up and roll out further if
necessary. From a pilot's perspective, fly-ability (not the
additional lower fuselage weight) would be my primary concern for
deciding to ditch it or not.
"Of
interest, in my past, P-3 Mission Commander qualification boards
often addressed a similar scenario where a hostile country
intercepts and attempts to force your P-3 to land in a 'hostile
country.' What should you do? The correct answer then was 'No.'
You were to evade/ditch first, rather than fly it in. Of course,
is China really considered a 'hostile' country?"
(courtesy Ed Badolato)
LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH BY STEELE --
Robert Steele, the intrepid apostle of improved Open Source
exploitation by the Intelligence Community, sent a letter to
President Bush telling him "that he is being ill-served by an
intelligence community obsessed with secrets."
http://www.oss.net/Papers/white/LettertothePresident.doc
SENATOR MOYNIHAN LETTER ON GORBACHEV AND CIA
FORECASTS OF THE FUTURE -- The distinguished former senator
from New York, a member of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence for eight years, commented recently on the CIA
Conference on Cold War Intelligence estimates at Princeton
University. In a letter to the Post, Senator Moynihan concurred
with a reporter's view that CIA missed the call on predicting
the collapse of the Soviet Union. He noted that Gorbachev's
address at the United Nations in 1988 indeed marked the end of the
Cold War and an end to the Soviet Union as we had known it, and
CIA blew it.
One may be permitted to observe that such calls are immeasurably
facilitated by hindsight. For the IC analysts and officials at the
time, making these forecasts in the context of almost fifty years
of Cold War, and with a deep appreciation and suspicion of Soviet
objectives and deception as part of the prevailing US culture, the
call was not as simple. Or perhaps it was as easy as the financial
experts predicting the course of the stock market in the year
2000. Forecasting the future, with secrecy or without, is a dicey
proposition. Gorbachev, a former KGB chief, and his UN speech in
1988 notwithstanding, might have been deceptive or if not, been
overthrown -- as he almost was in a coup. The Soviet threat might
not have gone away.
Those who have read these Estimates know that they are frequently
using caveats and conditional terminology about the opaque future.
The evidence of CIA's call on the USSR presented at the
Conference, one way or the other, appeared to this observer at the
Conference as somewhat ambiguous -- except for the comfortingly
impressive and diverse intellects that were brought to bear on the
problem. But it was also clear that US Executive policy and
decision-makers, accepting intelligence as only one input in their
national decision-making, pursued the proper policies to defeat
the USSR in the 1990's almost as completely as Nazi Germany had
been in 1945. The USSR has been dismembered, impoverished, turned
inside-out by intelligence, and made militarily irrelevant except
for the potential threat of rogue uses for its nuclear &
biological material.
We can move on from the discussion of how many intelligence angels
danced on the head of a pin. The war was won. Enough already.
(Jonkers) (Moynihan/WPost)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
JOIN THE AFIO LEGION OF MERIT --
SPONSOR A NEW
MEMBER in 2001!
SPONSOR FIVE AND WIN A PRIZE!
Check our Website www.afio.com
for back issues and lots of other information.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++end++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
